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Marvin Wilson Texas Execution

Marvin Wilson was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a man who informed police about his activity. According to court documents Marvin Wilson blamed the victim for getting him arrested on a drug charge. Once released from jail Marvin Wilson would find the victim and fatally shoot him. Marvin Wilson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Marvin Wilson would be executed by lethal injection on August 8 2012

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The state of Texas executed convicted killer Marvin Wilson Tuesday, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers argument that he shouldn’t have been eligible for the death penalty due to his low IQ.

Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead Tuesday evening after receiving a lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, Wilson’s attorneys argued he was too mentally impaired for capital punishment, pointing to a 2004 psychological test that pegged his IQ at 61, below the generally accepted minimum competency standard of 70.

But lower courts agreed with state attorneys, who argued that Wilson’s claim was based on a single, and possibly faulty, test. His mental impairment claim wasn’t supported by other tests and assessments over the years.

Lead defense attorney Lee Kovarsky said he was “gravely disappointed and saddened” by the ruling, calling it “outrageous that the state of Texas continues to utilize unscientific guidelines … to determine which citizens with intellectual disability are exempt from execution.”

Wilson was convicted of murdering 21-year-old police informant Jerry Williams in November 1992. The murder happened several days after police seized 24 grams of cocaine from Wilson’s apartment and arrested him.

Witnesses testified that Wilson, who was free on bond, and another man, beat Williams outside of a convenience store, accusing Williams of snitching on him about the drugs. They said the men abducted Williams, and neighborhood residents said they heard a gunshot a short time later. Williams was found dead on the side of a road the next day

In Wilson’s Supreme Court appeal, Kovarsky said Wilson’s language and math skills “never progressed beyond an elementary school level,” that he reads and writes below a second-grade level and that he was unable to manage his finances, pay bills or hold down a job.

The Supreme Court issued a 2002 ruling outlawing the execution of the mentally impaired, but left it to states to determine what constitutes mental impairment. Kovarsky argued that Texas was trying to skirt the ban by altering the generally accepted definitions of mental impairment to the point where gaining relief for an inmate is “virtually unobtainable.”Edward Marshall, a Texas assistant attorney general, said records showed that Wilson habitually gave less than full effort (on the testing) and “was manipulative and deceitful when it suited his interest,” and that the state considered his ability to show personal independence and social responsibility in making its determinations.

“Considering Wilson’s drug-dealing, street-gambler, criminal lifestyle since an early age, he was obviously competent at managing money, and not having a 9-to-5 job is no critical failure,” Marshall said. “Wilson created schemes using a decoy to screen his thefts, hustled for jobs in the community, and orchestrated the execution of the snitch, demonstrating inventiveness, drive and leadership.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marvin-wilson-convicted-killer-executed-by-texas-despite-claims-of-having-too-low-iq/

Yokamon Hearn Texas Execution

Yokamon Hearn was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a man during a robbery. According to court documents Yokamon Hearn and accomplices forced the victim into a car, drove him to a remote location where he was fatally shot. Yokamon Hearn would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Yokamon Hearn would be executed by lethal injection on July 18 2012

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America’s most prolific death penalty state has executed its first inmate using one drug instead of three. Yokamon Hearn, 33, was killed with a single dose of pentobarbital, which had been part of a three-drug mixture used for executions before shortages of the other drugs arose. Ohio, Arizona, Idaho, and Washington have already switched to using a single dose of the drug, which is more commonly used to put down dogs and cats, and Georgia announced this week that it also plans to make the switch, reports AP.

Hearn received the death penalty for the 1998 murder of a Dallas stockbroker who was carjacked and shot in the head 10 times. He was within an hour of being executed in 2004 when a federal court agreed that his claims of mental impairment due to fetal alcohol syndrome should be reviewed, an avenue of appeal that the assistant district attorney who prosecuted him claimed “would be a free pass for anyone whose parents drank.” Hearn “had a tough background, but a lot of people have tough backgrounds, and work their way out and don’t fill someone’s head with 10 bullets,” he said

William Davis Texas Death Row

William Davis was a nurse who was just convicted of four murders and sentenced to death in Texas. According to court documents William Davis would inject air into the arteries of heart patients causing the deaths of four people and injuring at least eleven more. William Davis would be convicted of four counts of murder and would be sentenced to death

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William Davis 2021 Information

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A former Texas nurse was sentenced to death this week for injecting air into the arteries of four patients recovering from heart surgery, causing fatal brain damage, a court official said.

A jury in Tyler, Texas, handed up the sentence on Wednesday in the capital murder case of the former nurse, William Davis, eight days after convicting him.

Prosecutors said during the trial’s sentencing phase that Mr. Davis, 37, had harmed at least 11 patients altogether by injecting air into their arterial lines or venous systems.

Two of those other patients later died, according to prosecutors, but charges were not brought because the cases would have been harder to prove.

In making their case for the death penalty, prosecutors had played a recording of a jailhouse phone conversation in which Mr. Davis told his ex-wife that he wanted to prolong the I.C.U. stays of the patients so that he could accrue overtime. Their deaths, Mr. Davis said on the call, were accidental.

Jacob Putman, the district attorney for Smith County, rejected that explanation during a news conference on Wednesday.

“Even if that were true and that he somehow was trying to prolong their illness, for someone to do that — kill their patient and then try again,” he said, “you have to be the kind of person who has no empathy, who does not care for another person, who is unconcerned with their well being, who feels no guilt.”

William Davis was working for Christus Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler at the time that the four patients named in the case experienced complications after heart surgery in 2017 and 2018. He was fired about a month before his arrest in April 2018. Tyler is about 100 miles east of Dallas.

A lawyer for Mr. Davis, who lives in Hallsville, Texas, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/us/texas-nurse-death-penalty.html

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Rick Rhoades Texas Execution

Rick Rhoades was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder committed thirty years ago. According to court documents Rick Rhoades would force his way into a home and would murder Charles Allen, 31, and Bradley Allen, 33. Rick Rhoades had just been released from jail when the murders took place. Rick Rhoades would be convicted and sentenced to death. Rick Rhoades would be executed on September 27 2021 by lethal injection

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A Texas inmate was executed Tuesday evening for fatally stabbing two Houston-area brothers during a robbery in their home more than 30 years ago.

Rick Rhoades, 57, was executed by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the September 1991 killings of Charles Allen, 31, and Bradley Allen, 33. The brothers were killed less than a day after Rhoades had been released on parole after serving a sentence for burglary.

Rhoades, strapped to the death chamber gurney, turned his head and looked briefly at relatives of his victims as they walked to a window in a witness area a few feet from him. Asked by the warden to make a final statement, he declined.

Then as the lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital began flowing through needles in each of his arms, Rhoades took several deep breaths, gurgled twice and began snoring, each breath becoming less pronounced. Within about a minute, all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead at 6:29 p.m. CDT, 17 minutes after the lethal injection began.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to delay Rhoades’ execution over claims his constitutional right to due process was being violated because he was being prevented from pursuing allegations that some potential jurors at his trial might have been dismissed for racially discriminatory reasons.

“We hope the Allen family finds peace after nearly 30 years of waiting for justice for their loved ones,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, who attended the execution, said in a statement.

“The death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst, and a Harris County jury determined long ago that this defendant fits the bill. Let us honor the memory of the victims, Charles and Bradley Allen, and never forget that our focus has and always will be on the victims.”

Marley Allen Holt, Bradley Allen’s daughter who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and who was born during Rhoades’ trial, said she attended Tuesday’s punishment because Rhoades watched her father die and “I wanted to watch him die.”

“It’s a weird feeling,” Kevin Allen, whose two brothers were slain, said after witnessing the execution. “I can’t really describe what it’s like. It’s the most solemn thing I think I’ve ever been part of, if that’s the word that’s even appropriate.”

In July, Rhoades’ attorneys had filed a federal lawsuit against state District Judge Ana Martinez in Houston over a request they had made that the judge order prosecutors to release information related to allegations some jurors were dismissed based on racial discrimination.

Martinez ruled she lacked jurisdiction to consider the request. The suit was dismissed earlier this month by a Houston federal judge, who also declined to stay the execution. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld the suit’s dismissal and also declined to stay the execution. The appeals court in 2019 had previously denied a similar claim by Rhoades’ attorneys on allegations that two Black jurors were dismissed due to racial bias. Rhoades is white.

Rhoades’ attorneys had previously unsuccessfully argued in other appeals: that his constitutional rights were violated when childhood photos depicting Rhoades in normal, happy activities and designed to show he was nonviolent and would do well in prison were excluded during his trial’s punishment phase; that a state investigator gave false testimony at his trial over whether Rhoades could receive an unaccompanied furlough if sentenced to life in prison; and that “evolving standards of decency” prohibit executions as a punishment for murder.

“A 2020 Gallup poll on Americans’ attitudes regarding capital punishment shows that public support for the death penalty is at its lowest in a half-century, with opposition higher than any time since 1996,” David Dow and Jeffrey Newberry wrote in a court motion last month.

Rhoades had a long criminal history, including convictions for burglary and auto theft in Florida, Iowa and Texas, when he broke into Charles Allen’s house in the Houston suburb of Pasadena.

The home, located near where the siblings’ parents lived, had just been custom built for Charles Allen and he had invited his brother to temporarily live with him. The two brothers had recently gone through separate divorces.

Charles Allen, who played the piano and had dreams of a musical career, worked as a chemical operator at a local refinery. Bradley Allen worked as a freelance artist.

At trial, prosecutors told jurors the siblings were asleep when Rhoades broke into their home in the early morning hours and attacked Charles Allen as he was in his bed. Bradley Allen was killed when he came to his brother’s defense.

An arrest in the case wasn’t made until about a month later when Rhoades was caught burglarizing an elementary school. While in custody, Rhoades confessed to killing the brothers. But he claimed it was done in self-defense after exchanging words with Charles Allen as Rhoades took a walk at 2:30 a.m.

“I was tired of running. I wanted to tell what happened,” Rhoades said in his confession.

Rhoades was the third inmate put to death this year in Texas and the sixth in the U.S. Four more executions are scheduled for later this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

https://news.yahoo.com/texas-inmate-faces-execution-fatally-034554397.html

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Carl Blue Texas Execution

Carl Blue was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of his ex girlfriend in 1994. According to court documents Carl Blue would douse his ex girlfriend with gasoline and set her on fire. The woman would die from her injuries. Carl Blue would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Carl Blue would be executed by lethal injection on February 21, 2013

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On Aug. 19, 1994, Carl Blue stood outside the College Station apartment of his former girlfriend, Carmen Richards-Sanders, holding a cup of gasoline. When she opened the door to leave for work, Blue tossed the liquid onto her, flicked his lighter, and set her afire. When Lawrence Williams, who was also in the apartment, tried to come to her aid, Blue allegedly doused and set him ablaze too. Williams survived, but Richards-Sanders died in the hospital two and a half weeks later. Blue was convicted of the crime and sentenced to die.

Unless his final appeals are successful, Blue will be the first person executed in Texas in 2013 when he is taken to the death chamber on Feb. 21. He would be the 493rd inmate sent to death in Texas since reinstatement of the death penalty, and the 253rd to die under the watch of Gov. Rick Perry.

Blue was first convicted in 1995, but his death sentence was overturned by an appeals court, which ruled that a state witness improperly testified that because Blue is black he is more likely to be dangerous in the future. Although Blue was given a new sentencing hearing and again sentenced to die in 2001, questions still remain about whether his punishment fit the crime. At issue now is whether the court-appointed attorney who represented him in that retrial was ineffective, in part for failing to present evidence related to Blue’s troubled background and mental impairments. To wit: Blue was born prematurely to a 13-year-old mother in a severely impoverished family; at birth he weighed less than 3 pounds. Because he was born at home in a two-room shack shared by 22 people, the family could not afford to take him to the doctor; they warmed him in an oven for a week before taking him to the emergency room. He remained there in an incubator for two months, but even then weighed only 5 pounds, according to an appeal filed Jan. 22 in Brazos County by his current lawyer, Michael Charlton. Blue’s premature birth and seriously low birth weight make it more likely that he would suffer from hypoxic brain injury. Furthermore, Blue only functions at the level of a third-grader – he can barely read or write – and was bullied and abused as a child. Yet none of these issues were raised – mitigating factors that Charlton argues might have persuaded jurors to spare his life.

Moreover, Charlton argues that an ineffective assistance of counsel claim was never before raised because the same attorney, John Wright, represented Blue both at trial and on appeal. “Clearly … Mr. Wright had a conflict of interest that materially and adversely affected the representation of Mr. Blue,” Charlton wrote.

Whether the court will grant a stay in order to consider whether Wright was ineffective remains to be seen. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the failure to raise an ineffective assistance claim in an initial appeal does not necessarily preclude a later appellate review. If the Brazos County court rejects the appeal, it will be up to the Supremes to decide whether to stay Blue’s date with death.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2013-02-15/man-who-functions-at-third-grade-level-sentenced-to-die/